Wireless communication that uses millimeter wave bands is attracting the interest of people due to licensing not being required and so forth. The IEEE 802.11ad standard is a wireless communication standard for millimeter wave bands that has been standardized by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) (see NPL 1).
The technology stipulated in the IEEE 802.11ad standard enables multi-gigabit high-speed digital communication. Furthermore, the IEEE 802.11ad standard supplements and extends the MAC (media access control address) layer of IEEE 802.11, and has backward compatibility with the IEEE 802.11 WLAN (wireless local area network) standard.
In addition, the IEEE 802.11ad standard supports centralized network architecture such as an infrastructure BSS (basic service set) and a PBSS (personal BSS) in the MAC layer. Here, centralized network architecture is a network structure in which a central coordinator such as an access point (AP) or a personal BSS control point (PCP) transmits beacons for all stations (STAs) within the network to be synchronized.
Furthermore, in the IEEE 802.11ad standard, directional communication is carried out using beamforming in a wider range compared to other IEEE 802.11 WLAN standards that operate in the 2.4-GHz or 5-GHz frequency bands.
The IEEE 802.11ad standard can provide PHY (physical layer) data transmission speeds of 6.7 Gbps at maximum by using a bandwidth of 2.16 GHz. In addition, in order to improve transmission efficiency, an aggregate PPDU (aggregate physical layer protocol data unit, hereinafter referred to as “A-PPDU”) is supported in the physical layer of the IEEE 802.11ad standard. An A-PPDU can reduce the overhead and improve the data transmission speed by aggregating two or more PPDUs without including an IFS (Interframe Space) or a preamble in PPDU transmission.
In this way, the IEEE 802.11ad standard has been attracting attention due to having a large number of advantages such as excellent high-speed properties and backward compatibility, centralized network architecture, and supporting beamforming and A-PPDUs.